


How We End Up Alone

by ivyleagueLT



Series: Running From the Streetlights [3]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Drug Addiction, Implied Drug Use, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyleagueLT/pseuds/ivyleagueLT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray is gone and Walt's alone. Both are trying but one is failing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How We End Up Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly the worst summary ever? Y/Y. Yet another song fic, set to "Winter Song" by Sara Bareilles. Okay so the events of this one take place after the events of part 1 of the series. Since I posted part 2 second even though it's the prequel to part one. Confused? Sorry about that! I wrote it fairly quickly, much like the other installments. So if there are any problems that is a lack of being able to read on my part. Even though I proofed it quite a few times. Hope you like it!

**_This is my winter song. December never felt so wrong, cause you’re not where you belong; inside my arms._ **

_“Hey,”_

That’s all the piece of paper Walt had been staring at all afternoon read. That’s all the piece of paper had read for the past two days that Walt had been attempting to write to Ray. What was he supposed to say? Hey, what’s up; how’s rehab going; are you ready to stop screwing up and just fucking come home already? How was he supposed to put into words the loneliness that he felt everyday when he came home to their spotlessly clean and quiet apartment. Ray had barely been gone an hour before Walt pulled himself up off the floor and scrubbed the entire apartment; he couldn’t bear to look at all of Ray’s art supplies lying around everywhere, knowing he wouldn’t be coming home to them.

So Walt found himself, yet again, staring at a mostly blank sheet of paper that pretty accurately represented how he felt without Ray with him, empty.

**&**

**_My love, a beacon in the night. My words will be your light to carry you to me._ **

Ray held the letter up over his head as he lay in his bed in the pitch dark. That was okay though, he had read it enough time to know every single word, every single punctuation mark by rote. But still he strained his eyes to see Walt’s neat, slanted handwriting scrawled across the page. He used to make fun of how girly Walt’s script was, now he found it was the one thing keeping him tethered to the man he loved so many miles away. He never let the letter out of his sight, no longer than it took for him to take a shower; he carried it with him everywhere he went.

_“Let this letter be your guiding light to find your way home to me.”_ It was the last line of the letter and it broke Ray’s heart every time he read it. Just to know that Walt was still there, waiting for him and that he wasn’t going to come back to find Walt gone was more than enough reason for Ray to get his shit together so he could get out of this place.

**&**

**_This is my winter song to you. The storm is coming soon; it rolls in from the sea._ **

When Walt finally figured out what he wanted to say to Ray it was like something inside him finally broke free. He let the words pour out of him and onto the page. He tried to put into words how he had taken to waking up early like Ray used to, early enough to fix a pot of coffee that would go untouched for the entire day because he really only brewed it because Ray drank it and he needed the smell in the morning in order to pretend that he was alright. He tried to put into words how he would sit outside of their apartment in his truck for almost an hour every day after coming home from work, just because he couldn’t bear the thought of walking into an empty house, knowing that the smell of the coffee had likely filtered away by now. He tried to put into words how he refused to sleep in their room anymore; the thought of sleeping alone in their big bed made Walt want to tear his own hair out and so he had taken to sleeping in the spare room or falling asleep on the couch with the television as his only company.

He however did not mention the dozens of times Nate and Brad would ring his phone and when they received no answer they would rush over and use their spare key to get in, only to find Walt a sobbing mess on the floor of the kitchen or nearly drowning himself in the shower, screaming in pain.

 He didn’t mention that every day away from Ray was making Walt a little bit more desperate.

**&**

**_I still believe in summer days. The seasons always change and life will find a way._ **

_“You remember that summer we took a road trip to New York? It was the one time I was actually able to have a summer without being deployed or needing to be on base. We should do that again. Maybe invite Brad and Nate this time.”_

Ray remembered, he remembered well. It was the happiest he had been since he had met Walt. It was also the most sober he had been ever. They rolled with the windows down, blasting country music as the wound their way across the country. Ray would screech out the lyrics to whatever song played and Walt would laugh like church bells ringing and slide across the bench seat of Ray’s truck to tuck himself right up against Ray’s side and sling an arm around his shoulder, touching everywhere from their shoulders to their knees, singing right along, albeit much more in tune.

But then they had come home, and things had changed. Ray fell back into old habits and it was like the summer had only existed in a dream.

**&**

**_I’ll be your harvester of light and send it out tonight so we can start again._ **

_“Let this letter be your guiding light to find your way home to me.”_ Walt didn’t sign with “Love” or “Love always” or “Yours forever” or any combination of the words. He knew he loved Ray, if the constant shattering of his heart that he felt every morning he woke up cold an alone was any indication. And he knew that Ray loved him, even when he gave him the cold shoulder or outright screamed in his face and cursed the day he was born. Ray wouldn’t be where he was now if he didn’t love Walt or vice versa. So instead he signed it with words that he knew Ray needed to hear. He signed it to let Ray know that he wasn’t going anywhere, that he would be here, ready to start over again.

 


End file.
